


New Vegas Lights on the Horizon

by AccioRavenclaw



Series: The Lyra Chronicles [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: All Characters (mostly) - Freeform, Caesar's Legion, Canonical Character Death, Gen, NCR
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2018-10-30 13:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10878162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioRavenclaw/pseuds/AccioRavenclaw
Summary: "If you like news, then you're gonna love our next segment."A series of vignettes about my courier, Lyra, as she makes her way across the Mojave.





	1. Chapter 1

She is a Trojan horse. She knows the story well enough from both Arcade and her youth spent within the Fort across the river.  
  
At the gate she disarms: hands over her pistol and Legion-make machete as smoothly as soothing cazadores.  
  
Today she’s here to do as House wants. Today she pretends to submit. Today she observes.  
  
Tomorrow, a week, a month from now: she’ll raze the whole damn fort to the ground. The day is coming. When she'll bring Caesar’s army to its knees; her hands bloodied and head held high.  
  
Today, however, she walks shoulder to shoulder with Legionaries that would just as quickly gut her if they knew of the brand on her back.  
  
She holds no illusions, doesn’t matter if she’s wearing the coin with the bull on her neck for all to see. The mark stamped in copper does not make her safe from the mark seared into her skin. She knows escapees are never tolerated – they’re only made an example of.  
  
She’s almost succeeded in walking past, through the rows of tents and on looking eyes, when she catches one of hound master’s eyes. He stops, pauses and looks at her as though seeing a ghost.  
  
Perhaps she is one after cheating death twice: in the river and the grave. Maybe Pluto sent her back across the Styx each time. She was never meant for Elysium anyway.  
  
She recognizes him as well. Worse yet, she knows him by name: Antony.  
  
“What’s wrong?” A Decanus asks. Then, seeing Lyra, adds, “Do you recognize her?”  
  
Lyra holds his eye. It isn’t a plea. She does not beg, not to anyone. Especially not to Legionaries. But she finds herself holding her breath.  
  
Miraculously, the word falls from his mouth. “No.”  
  
He scratches a mongrel behind her ear, but his eyes never leave her. He lied – he knows and he _lied._  
  
There’s an understanding there. He knows her as hailing from the only other tribe that revered dogs the way his had. Not that it truly matters. When the Legion came to Colorado, as it did in Arizona, both tribes burned. The difference: A leash was placed in his hands while a collar was fitted around her neck.  
  
Even among the slaves in her old barrack, Lyra liked the Hangdogs. There was a kind of unspoken kinship among their people. For now it seems like he’ll keep that old kinship, even if it might be a death sentence.  
  
So she turns her gaze and steps into Caesar’s tent.  
  
Inside she’s met with several members of the Praetorian Guard. They salute her in greeting, “Ave”, as she walks down the path to where Caesar sits on his throne. The man leans forward in his seat, evaluating her as she walks forward: The lone woman he’s invited for an audience. Vulpes whispers something between them in Latin that she pretends she doesn’t understand.  
  
Among the guard, standing at attention, are the wild broken hounds. Broken: she’s not foolish enough to consider them domestic or tame. They’re bred for strength and speed and trained to follow orders like their Legionary masters. Broken and trained – like the shattered tribesmen that make up the Legion.  
  
As she passes them she ghosts her fingers in front of their snouts. They’re Hangdog trained, Legion handled, but she wonders if Sun Dog is in their blood.  
  
She refuses to show her smile when none of them bare their teeth at her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning* Mild gore, blood, and teeth

Boone watches as Lyra hacks the heads from the Fiends. She severs their spines easily, her machete falling with a practiced hand. It reminds him of some Legionaries, but he doesn’t speak the thought. Instead he stands guard while she collects, blood-spatter covering her up to her elbows. 

After they collect Violet, he watches her as she puts bottle caps on the eyes of each of the hounds. 

When he asks, she says, “Dogs are sacred,” and that seems to be that. He has his own skeletons in the closet, so he makes it a policy to not go prying into someone else’s. Except sometimes he can’t help but ask about her strange quirks and rituals.

He knows it’s one of the few times he just has to open his mouth when he sees her pull a pair of pliers from her pocket. She begins pulling molars, each coming free with a sickening squelch. 

“Must you really do that?”

“Does it bother you?” She asks with a tone of seriousness. Like she would actually stop if he asked her to. 

“No, it just doesn’t seem necessary. You already have the heads for the bounty. What purpose does collecting their teeth serve?” 

“Just an old ritual,” she replies with a shrug, but Boone can see the ghosts in her eyes. He lets the subject go as they walk back to Macarran in silence. 

Later that night, around a campfire, he watches as she strings the three new molars to the collection she already decorates her neck with. 

“What are those?” He asks, pointing to a few that obviously aren’t human.

She identifies them, running her fingers over each as though worrying the beads of a rosary. Three Deathclaw fangs, two from some Yao-Guai in Zion, five different Nightstalker fangs, and an enlarged molar from a Nightkin named Davison. 

“So, trophy or warning?” He asks.

“A bit of both” she confesses with a smile, but the razor blades aren’t in it. “My tribe used to celebrate important victories this way. Mostly to show proof of the things that did not kill us.”

“So why add the Fiend’s teeth?” He asks, though he can see that they are not the only human ones on the string. Neither of the three leader’s seemed particularly noteworthy, or challenging like a Deathclaw for that matter.

“Major Dhatri said they killed many soldiers, and they didn’t kill us.” She replies.

“That’s all?” He asks.

“Yes. I live and they died, it’s really that straightforward.”

“What happens when you run out of room?”

“I get a longer string.” She replies with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted on my [Tumblr](http://elvishdork.tumblr.com/post/153475563609/excerpt-from-an-abandoned-ficlet-warnings-mild)


	3. Chapter 3

The woman is sitting in the exact same bar stool as when Lyra last saw her. She hasn’t been to the outpost since she secured stability for Primm. She hasn’t been inside the bar since the day she ran back from Nipton, tail between her legs, to warn everyone of the carnage Vulpes wrought on the town.  
  
But that was over a month ago. Today she carries a business offer from a cut throat Caravan company. She eases into the stool beside the woman the soldiers call “Whiskey Rose” when they think she can’t hear. The white knuckle grip the woman has on the bottle tells Lyra otherwise.  
  
“You again.” The woman remarks, looking at Lyra from under her hat. “What brings you back to this Brahmin pen? Legion on our doorstep yet?”  
  
Lyra gestures to Lacey, the bartender, and orders two of whatever the woman is drinking. Lacey raises her eyebrows, passes a look between Lyra and the woman, and shakes her head as she goes to retrieve the drinks.  
  
“People usually ask my name first before buying me a round.” The woman says when Lacey places the drink in front of her. It’s in an actual glass instead of the bottle and Lyra can’t tell if the woman views this as an improvement or with disappointment. The alcohol has made her eyes harder to read.  
  
“You didn’t strike me as the type to want to get personal.” Lyra replies, sipping her own drink.  
  
The woman laughs in response, eyes on Lyra as she takes a sip of the amber drink herself. “I’m Cass, owner of Cassidy Caravans.”  
  
“I’m Lyra, independent courier.” She replies.  
  
“Well if you’re looking for work you’ll want to look elsewhere. I lost my caravan heading north. Whole thing just burned to ash: driver, cargo, and all.”  
  
“Burned? That doesn’t sound like raiders.” Lyra replies.  
  
“No shit. My guess is Legion, trying to cut NCR supply lines and all. Outpost is proof enough, got us all locked up tighter than a New Vegas virgin.”  
  
She catches a couple of the outposts’ patrons at the table behind Cass share a snigger and she ignores them.  
  
“I thought the caravans were moving since I cleared the road for Jackson.” Lyra inquires. Though ants usually breed like vermin, so it’s possible the roads are already overrun again.  
  
“It’s better than it was, but Jackson sees the worst outcome in everything. So nobody really does anything. Washed up old bastard won’t even let me head north even though my caravan is gone, my damn paperwork keeps me here.”  
  
Time for her to lay some chips on the table. “Well, maybe I can help with that. Crimson Caravans sent me, they want to buy your business.”  
  
“They want to buy Cassidy Caravans?” Cass asks, sharing a small unbelieving laugh with herself. “Don’t they know it’s burned to ash? You know what, no. I’m not looking to sell for all the whiskey in Reno.” She puts her glass down, her hand moving back towards her bottle.  
  
Whoever McLafferty’s contacts are, she might want to double check their authenticity. Because this is starting to look less and less like an easy negotiation with someone who actually wants out of the business.  
  
“You haven’t even seen the offer yet.” Lyra suggests, trying to get a read on the cards between their hands. Some days she really does wonder if Mercury would have been a better patron to her than whichever of the gods it was that oversaw her misfortune.  
  
“Yeah, and if someone just came up and offered you caps for your name, would you take it?” Cass asks.  
  
For Lyra it’s not a theoretical scenario, but she holds her tongue. This exchange has nothing to do with her past. She doesn’t let it get under her skin.  
  
“Actually, you know what, fuck it. I don’t want to hear your answer anyway.” Cass retorts, taking a swig from the bottle. Lyra can hear the alcohol in her now that her temper is rising. Lacey seems to hear it too and gives Cass a good look over with her eyes, gauging for her next behaviors. It’s enough to tell Lyra that there is more to her reputation than just drinking. But surprisingly, she continues softer, “Dad would spin like a twister if he ever heard I sold our name for anything.”  
  
“It’s a fair deal.” Lyra presses.  
  
“Look I get that you came all the way out here. Takes some drive, and these days I can respect that. But I’m not about to go selling history for a slip of paper.”  
  
And Lyra can respect that. She can, but respect doesn’t buy bullets or medicine. Even still, she folds her hand. There are other ways to make caps.  
  
“My job was to deliver the offer.” She says before knocking back the rest of her drink. She pulls the offer form from her armor pocket and places it on the counter near Cass. “If you’d rather stay here, that’s your choice. If you change your mind, the offer’s still on the table. There’s enough caps in that offer to start up a new caravan.”  
  
She’s stands to her feet, fishing some caps out to pay the tab, and then walk out the double doors.  
  
She’s almost past the sun baked statues when Cass calls out to her.


	4. Chapter 4

The stage and the King’s dancers have a certain allure to them, Lyra can’t deny. But her business is with the King himself, not his stage or followers.  
  
Pacer is pulling lead out of his arm at a table across the room. He glares at her as though she’s responsible for the NCR guns he angered.  
  
“We used to be better off, until House showed up and chased us from the Strip.” The King tells her amid apologizing for the situation she had to diffuse.  
  
Lyra can sympathize. Knows what it’s like when others show up and kick you from your home for the things they want: land, resources, bodies.  
  
She’s looked around Freeside. She’s seen the poverty the Followers are too overwhelmed by.  
  
She sees how broken glass and used up needles litter the streets. She’s watched children chase their next meal down with nothing but a broken board pulled from an old building. She’s looked upon chem dealers as they make addicts out of their neighbors for the caps they just as desperately need. She’s spoken to the Kings that patrol the streets as they attempt to exert some control over the unpoliced chaos.  
  
She’s seen business scrape by on the scraps the NCR leaves behind. She’s seen the dangerous deals they arrange with those on the Strip: in boxes of guns and false wall panels. She recognizes the hollow looks in the eyes of the criers on the streets. She looks at how the Van Graff family throws their NCR backed mussels around, and feels justified for breaking into their safe.  
  
She sees how House is content to let the rest of the Mojave suffer so long as his Strip remains wealthy. She sees how the NCR only cares for its citizens and the absorption of new land. She’s seen enough to know what the Legion would do to the people here.  
  
She sees and, like the Followers, she wants to help. Just wants to in more ways than the blood and steel she knows so well.  
  
So Lyra extends her hand. These are the people who will matter in the long run. The people who will be under her flag when she finally emerges from House’s den as the new voice of Vegas.  
  
But that day is not today. Today she lays the ground work.  
  
She names her favor: “Make me a King.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Rex!” Lyra shouts at the top of her lugs as the dog takes off at top speed; charging at a pack of molerats twice his size.  
  
“Stupid mutt,” Cass mutters as she swings the rifle from her back.  
  
Lyra gives an audible sigh of exasperation in response as she watches Rex in the distance.  
  
As things go, it certainly could be worse. The doctor in the old ski lodge said the problem was with the actual brain, not the medgel keeping it alive: both good and bad news.  
  
So Lyra walks along the old winding road from Jacob’s town on a mission to obtain another brain.  
  
The doctor had given her a few places to look for one that would be compatible with Rex, but his list doesn’t really leave her any options.  
  
She’s already killed the pack of hounds the Fiends had bred weeks ago. By now nature has taken its course with them. She suspects she’d find little but bone now; their bodies having been picked over by vultures and other scavengers. Even still, any brain among the corpses would not be fit for surgery.  
  
She also cannot return to the Fort. Next time she crosses the river and steps through the gates, she will be there for battle. That much she has promised herself.  
  
The next time she lays eyes on Caesar she will either kill him or she will die. There are no other options.  
  
So she walks along the roads back to the junkyard near Novac. The walk itself is mostly uneventful, though they try to avoid the caravan wreckage on their way back south. Lyra figures that Cass doesn’t need to see it a second time.  
  
The weight of Van Graff papers in her pocket prompts her to consider ways of breaking into the Crimson Caravan safe. She bitterly reflects upon her use of the stealth-boy from Nightkin of REPCONN on the Gun Runners. It’s not the first time she’s felt the sting of hindsight and knows it will not be the last.  
  
Cass’s revenge, however, will have to wait. A kind of wait that Lyra understands all too well, but Rex has a medical hour-glass running that calls for more urgent attention. The papers will still be in that office when Lyra gets around to it.  
  
Together their small group arrives with the old Dinky T-Rex on the horizon and the Helios station not far off in the distance. Outside, in the cool morning air, the dogs roam as the old woman sits on a rusty lawn chair.  
  
The last time she spoke to Old Lady Gibson it was an unsuccessful barter for rocket parts. Parts she had contemplated stealing, but is thankful she didn’t now that they’re face to face once more.  
  
Worry begins to take root in her stomach. How will she convince the woman to part with one of her own dogs if she couldn’t get her to easily part with the scrap in her junkyard?  
  
Lyra holds dogs as sacred; how can she ask this woman who lives alone to give up a member of her pack – her family?  
  
Yet the conversation isn’t what she expects. Like so many things, it’s a matter of caps to the woman. The life of an elderly loyal hound for a handful of caps.  
  
There was a time such an offer would have been the greatest of insults. There is no measure to the life of any dog. The greatest of companions to her people.  
  
She feels her ancestor’s shame at how now it is merely a decision she evaluates in her head.  
  
Her old elders would have told her to accept Rex’s fate. His time in this world has been long enough, more than any other dog has a right to. She wonders if they would have actually seen him as a dog, worthy of the respect and honor of her people, or if he was too much of a machine to count.  
  
But what right do ghosts have in dictating how the living survive in this world? Their choices are already made and done.  
  
She looks at Rex, sees the weathered outline of the bull in his armor plating and wonders if she’s doing the right thing. A thought she has far too frequently for comfort.  
  
She thinks of The King, the sad look in his eyes as he asked for help in the name of his companion. How he upturned tables in his anger and grief when the Followers told him there was nothing to be done. How hope cracked his voice when she told him of the doctor in the mountains.  
  
Right or wrong? Somewhere Lady Justice laughs with her scales as Lyra can’t decide how to read the balance.  
  
Life because it’s what’s best for others or life because she sees herself in him. Is the life of one greater than the life of another?  
  
A choice must be made. Both she and Rex survived the Legion. If she can survive the grave twice over, then Rex should live beyond decaying brain fluid. They both have people and unfinished business among the living to take care of.  
  
She pays the old woman’s fee.


	6. Chapter 6

“You’ve lost your god damned mind,” Cass swore as she pushed herself up from the ground and climbed over the still-smoking debris towards the wall that Lyra had fallen against.

Lyra manages to laugh through her teeth, pain spiking inside her rib cage. Even still, she musters up the energy to kick to the Legionaries’ body with the tip of her boot. Or at least the remnants of the man’s body. Perhaps lighting several sticks of dynamite at once was a poor decision.

Her memory draws on what Easy Pete once told her several months ago in Good Springs and she laughs again. Old bastard was right.

Meanwhile Cass is pulling her to her feet, swears rolling off her tongue as quickly as a sandstorm sweeps across the Mojave. Lyra doesn’t mind, it’s something to listen to over her own heartbeat in her ears.

Cass slings Lyra’s arm around her shoulder and begins the trek to the closest pocket of civilization. The two of them drag each other back up the road towards the I88. It’s a harder walk without Rex scanning for trouble, but he’s recovering from surgery and The King is happy to have him back.

Cass practically dumps Lyra at the old picnic table before she stumbles to the bar. Lyra would usually tease her about priorities, but the energy isn’t in her. Instead her attention is split: her eyes caught by a stranger in a long hooded cloak, the sun glinting off the metallic weapon around her fist.

Lyra stares at the back of their head. A hooded, power-fist clad stranger and Lyra’s mind immediately jumps to Frumentarii. After the failed assassination, that seems to be the next likely approach.

When Cass returns she slams a handful of stimpaks on the table along with a bottle of whiskey. It makes Lyra laugh weakly again. Together they tend to their injuries and wait for the miracle drug to work its magic. 

Cass talks about renting the mattresses and spending the night in the trading post. Lyra nods her head and agrees, but her attention never fully leaves the hooded back of the stranger. She thinks of all the ways this could go south and how she can subtly communicate her thoughts to Cass – though subtle is the last thing Cass happens to be.  
  
For a while the stranger just stares out over the land from the elevated position of the highway the I88 sits upon. When they do finally turn, walking towards the bar, Lyra catches her face. She watches as the hooded woman barters for supplies, notices several items that would be contraband in the Legion, and the tension in her shoulders starts to drop. She decides the woman is not Legion sent, though something about her still seems off. Guarded, perhaps, and Lyra can accept that. 

Cass passes the bottle to her and this time she accepts it.

As her lips touch the rim of the glass she can almost hear Arcade’s disapproving sign. She can almost recite the Follower’s lecture about the dangers of mixing alcohol with medication. She figures a mouthful won’t kill her. She’s walked away from worse after all.

After the grave not a whole lot measures up.

Lyra notices the cloaked woman’s occasional glances from the bar: eyes darting to her table and fleeing just as quickly. Obvious interest: even mixes of curiosity and something else Lyra can’t quite place. Something about her that says she’s looking for a conversation.

Months ago Lyra spoke to a boy whose home was among the neatly-line wall of junk under the underpass of this very trading post. She glances over her shoulder, down the railing her back is to, and can see him. On that visit, when she paid him for his fortunes, she hadn’t understood the meaning behind the “Here”. She thought it had meant the present, but perhaps he meant the actual location. 

“Forecast: Cloudy, with a chance of friendship,” the boy had said. She thinks of old stories of oracles and knows the boy hasn’t really been wrong yet.

She catches the woman’s eye again and she waves her towards their table.


	7. Chapter 7

Arcade doesn’t approve.

“I thought you wanted an independent Vegas,” She says, forcing her voice even. He was supposed to agree with her. 

His reply doesn’t do much to answer her. “Yes, I do, but this doesn’t seem like the right way to achieve that.”

“Why not?” She asks and hates how much like a child she sounds. She is Lyra - the Courier, a King - and she does not bow to anyone. So why does she need his approval so badly? Need him to agree that what she’s doing is what’s right. 

_Right_ : A muddled line she’s maybe crossed too many times if the blood on her hands is anything to go by. House’s blood is still under her nails and the streaks of it she wiped on her shirt aren’t fully brown like the weathered stains on her scarf are.

“Yes-Man is an advanced AI that has to obey what anyone tells him. A feature, need I remind you, that you exploited to get here.” He reasons. “It’ll have power over the whole strip. I don’t think anyone should have that power.”

She doesn’t know that the crease in his brow is from anxiety as more of his fears stare him in the face: Absolute power corrupting absolutely. She doesn’t know it’s the shadow of his own history weighing on his mind as he looks at the robot eagerly awaiting to take control of the vacant mainframe. 

Instead she thinks he’s worried about _her_ , a gut wrenching thought that tears at her harder than she expected. 

“You’re afraid I’ll be a dictator. Just another House at best and a Caesar at worst.” She says and manages to keep the pain from her voice. 

“No,” he says without hesitation. “I trust you. It’s the robot I don’t.” She hears the echo of his concerns for ED-E: _Just toss him in the lake with a pulse grenade_. 

Except she can’t. She needs this: she can almost taste victory and literally sees the independence within her grasp in the smiling robot.

“You sound like the Brotherhood.” She says and knows it’s a weak argument. The ideology between his and their factions has nothing to do with what she’s suggesting.

Arcade can sense it too. “Look, I know Emily, she’s a good person and she does good work; however good intentions don’t always have the best results. We can’t account for every possible action it could take once it has access to every securitron on the Strip. It’s a standing army that we have no hope of defeating if that thing goes rogue.”  
  
She knows his concern is valid, but like a gecko caught in a honey trap she won’t let go. 

“Don’t forget the forces in the bunker under the Fort.” Yes-Man helpfully adds. 

Arcade pales, looks horrified between the robot and her. “There’s more of them?” 

“Yes,” Lyra replies. “Caesar doesn’t know about them. They’ll be perfect for when the fighting breaks out.”

“So you split your forces.”

“They were split to begin with. I’m just lining up the pieces the best way I can.”

“This isn’t a game of chess, Lyra.” He says, the use of her name a mark of his seriousness. 

“Yet most wars are.” She replies, knowing enough without really knowing the game. She’s lived it. Caesar will not capture this King – she won’t allow it – and Yes-Man is ready to dominate the board as her Queen. 

She just needs Arcade to see it.

His lips set in a grim line. “I wasn’t aware you were fighting a war.” 

“It’s not going to be just one battle, Arcade. The Legion and NCR will try again and again to reclaim this land. They’ve been fighting over it for years now, you don’t just let go of something you’ve invested so much into.” An investment made in blood at that. She knows this, feels its truth in the marrow of her bones.  
“I thought it was just the Legion that had to go. I wasn’t aware you were looking at the NCR too.” 

“It’s not like that,” she replies and wants to scream. “I’m not going to displace hundreds and kick people out of the Strip and Freeside. The NCR’s people are not who I have problems with, but I’m not handing this land over to them. I don’t want their military presence to remain once Vegas is independent. It can’t.” 

He looks between her and the robot and shakes his head. He starts walking away, towards the elevator and a pain like a slap lands in her chest. _He’s leaving._

“If you think this is the answer, then fine, but just be careful with the choices you’re making. That’s all I’m asking.” He says, looking down at her from the height on the stairs. “I’ll tell the others not to worry about the alarm.”

When she hears the elevator doors click closed, she loses every harsh line in her body. Looses her breath in a long sigh as it moves past her lips. She looks to Yes-Man with newfound worry.

Arcade was supposed to agree with her.  


She doesn’t know how she’s even going to begin to explain this to Veronica.


	8. Chapter 8

Lyra does not remember the first time she met Arcade. Being on death’s door – cazadore-poisoned, bleeding, and certainly hallucinating – tends to muddle one’s memory.

She doesn’t remember being carried into the Mormon Fort by Boone with ED-E hovering close by.

She doesn’t remember the Follower doctors that directed them to the infirmary tent.

She doesn’t remember the researcher who somehow found himself in the infirmary tents more often than he liked. She wouldn’t have known that most days his research notes and barrel cacti sat collecting irradiated dust on his desk. 

She doesn’t remember the doctor who cleaned her wounds and hooked her into an IV drip with two parts anti-venom to one part stimpak. All while passing nervous glances to ED-E like it carried a plague. 

She does not remember the two women - Julie and Mattie, she would learn later - who came to relieve the staff. 

She would barely remember waking up in some odd hour of the early morning. She would recognize Boone by his red beret before falling back to sleep. 

She would remember the second time she woke up. This time she would remember the man with glasses and an off-white, dirt stained coat standing over her bed. She would learn his name and remember it.

She remembers the three days spent in that tent. Remembers watching the other beds around her rotate between patient, stripped sheets, and patient. A rapid cycle Freeside seemed determined to maintain as repeat patients ended up back in the Fort as though it were an assembly line stop.

She remembers talking to Julie on the third day, thanking her for her people’s help. Julie had raised an eyebrow, but eventually accepted the handshake and gratitude. She’d been stunned into silence again when Lyra asked if there was anything that can be done to repay their help. 

She remembers the following days, running messages to the Wrangler and establishing a supply line there instead. The caps are better kept in Freeside hands than in NCR pockets. 

She remembers finding Bill across from the Silver Rush, empty bottles scattered around his feet. His complaints that no other whisky works the way Dixion’s does, and that the withdrawal is killing him. She found Jacob in a crumbling building across from Mick & Ralph’s, who complained about Jet from the same dealer. She remembers how it took her three hours to find the dealer on the streets and a ten minute conversation at knifepoint to convince him to stop selling chems. 

She remembers walking into the Crimson Caravan in the dead of night. Swiping as much medical supplies as her pack could carry and finally taking a lockpick to the safe for Cass. Her conscious being clear when she dropped off what some have called the biggest supply drop the Followers have ever received: Med-x, Rad-Away, stimpacks, and precious fixers. 

She remembers how doctors thanked her and how Julie handed her a coat and spare key. 

She remembers Arcade by name when she sees him again that evening. Remembers the way he explained the fruitlessness of his research and how he could be doing better things. How he did not mind being out of sight among the Followers. How his Latin was a stone dropping in her stomach, but how it lacked the razor edges of the Legion. She remembers asking him to travel with her and remembers him agreeing.

Perhaps the remembering is why she hesitates when he stands in front of her, his family armor on instead of the dirt-stained Followers coat. History weighing down his shoulders as he asks if the Remnants fight is his as well.

She wants to say it isn’t, that he’ll be happier with his life with the Followers. But who is she to tell him to forget his past when hers haunts her like as ghost as she prowls the Mojave.

Their pasts are on every line of their body and Lyra knows that peace will not come until the wrongs of her own past are settled. 

_Dear old friends remember Navarro_

Perhaps Arcade walking in his father’s shoes will give him the peace he needs more than the cacti sitting in the tent of the Fort.

She tells him to fight but the words leave a funny taste in her mouth.


	9. Chapter 9

She’s almost happy she didn’t kill the Omerta thugs when Joana mentions hearing about shady business within the family. It’s always easier to infiltrate a place when the security isn’t actively hunting for her.

She leaves Joana and the others outside the Followers fort to get their chem addictions cleaned up. From there she trusts that Carlitos will get them as far away as he can. She had recommended Novac, but hopes whatever they find is better than what they're leaving behind. 

With closed fists she walks back to the casino with fire raging in her head. House picked these people to inhabit the Strip. He hand selected which people would have luxury and power of Vegas and he choose the Omertas. He knew what they were doing to the women, how they keep their prostitutes, and did _nothing_. 

It changes now or there will be no more Omertas - running Gomorrah or not; that she is sure of.

Inside the casino she hands over her weapons, but keeps the switchblade in her boot. The thug at the door is too dumb to look while she pretends to cooperate.  
With her elbow on the desk and her head in her hand she speaks with the Gomorrah receptionist. Yes-Man said she had an in here, an old favor to cash in and she plans on using it now.

Except the receptionist laughs at her and mistakes her words for attempts at gossip, “I sure do, but loose lips sink ships, hon.” 

“Beautiful, I would love to help you loosen those lips.” Lyra replies and mentally slaps herself. Seems she’s been hanging around Cass too much these days.

But, as awful as the line sounds to her, the change in tactics works. “Well, I’m not sure I could resist those pretty eyes, so what would you like to know?” 

Just like that she has a name: Cachino. 

Who turns out to be a squirrely man she instantly dislikes. When he refuses to speak to her she finds it surprisingly easy to break into his room. When his journal reveals that the Omerta’s are planning to attack and take over the Strip, she finds the idea of cleaning house slightly more appealing. 

These are the people House choose: these people who make their prostitutes into slaves through chem additions. She knows other groups who would do better on the Strip. 

It would certainly send a message to the other families. 

But she is trying to solve problems with more than just steel, blood, and bullets. Wants to believe what Ranger Jackson said about justice through a system of people than in personal violence. Wants to try to do better than what she knows the Legion would do, at least.

When she approaches Cachino again, at a table off to the side in the Brimstone club, she sits directly on the table and crosses her legs; because she knows it’s feminine enough to fit the atmosphere. The switchblade in her hand, next to his throat as she holds his journal in the other hand, however isn’t. 

“Here’s how this is going to play out,” she tells him. “There’s going to be a change in management here at Gomorrah and you’re going to help me. Because if you don’t, there’s going to be an entire staff change as well. Ya dig?” She presses the blade for emphasis, but in the dim light of the club and the way her hand holds it, it could appear to be a flirty caress of his cheek. 

“Loud and clear, ma’am.” He says. Shakily he offers her caps for the journal back and all the information she needs. Clanden needs to disappear and Troike’s smuggling needs to be stopped. 

She finds it easy to kill Clanden even before finding his tapes. She walks the line closer and closer to that staff change as she hides his body in his room. 

Troike proves to be more difficult, but she convinces him to break his contract. He tells her how to dispose of the guns and she tells him to go to the Followers to be free of his chem leash.

She ignites a room of guns, an explosion that feels like it rocks the foundation of the building, just before Cachino finds her to inform her that the bosses are requesting to speak with her. She walks the hotel with purpose in her stride. Follows Cachino up the stairs and towards an office as he attempts to slip her a firearm. She refuses it, instead pulling one of their own smuggled grenades. She pulls the pin, throws it into the office, and quickly shuts the door again. 

An explosion that shakes the floor follows and when she opens the door, it’s to a scene of carnage.

It seems some old methods still apply. 

She pulls her knife again, facing Cachino. “You only have once chance with me. You will stop giving chems to your prostitutes, you will pay for their treatments, and you will treat your employees fairly. If I find out you’re not – and I will know if you’re not – then I’ll be back to bring about that staff change. Understood.” She leaves no room for argument. This is an order, not a negotiation. 

“Yes.” He all but squeeks in reply.


	10. Chapter 10

She dashes across Boomer territory. Feels the lick of heat wash over her back among the spray of dirt as rocket shells erupt. Somewhere behind her she can hear Raul shouting something about his bad knees. 

She runs as fast as her legs will carry her, long strides across the pock marked land that lines the border of Boomer territory on her way to the fence; just like the betting man’s instructions told her. 

She’s rushing towards a tribe of people with a disposition to blow up anyone who steps foot in their land. A people content to be isolated. Running with midafternoon air burning in her lungs, she thinks perhaps they’re better left that way. 

But Pearl sends her off on jobs that convince her otherwise. That first day spent in the museum listening to a child explain their history; hearing the pride in his voice as they talk well past the reds of sunset. A pride her own people had once; she knows they will protect their lands and hers by extension when the time comes. Like Freeside and the Strip, they will also be her people if she can prove herself to them. 

The following days are spent running back and forth along the long concrete paths of their territory. Raquel – the Master-at-Arms who speaks to her as though talking around a mouthful of horsenettle - sends her to exterminate some ants. That she finds easier to do than Loyal’s request of repairing broken arrays. Can’t fix arrays with a machete like she can the ants. 

But Loyal takes to Raul better than her. The two older men talk shop while Loyal rigs a radio with ant killing sonic frequencies. Standing there, listening to the men pass small talk by means of math and salvaged tech she knows little of, she thinks it’s good to see a respect for age in the wastes.

As for the arrays, they spend the third day baking in harsh sunlight while Raul applies his trade. But Lyra can see that the furrow in the remainder of his brow is from more than concentration on the task at hand.

“What are you thinking, Raul?” She asks, handing him a flat-head screwdriver. 

“That Loyal guy, he might be getting up there in years, but he’s still finding ways to be useful to his people. Kind of reminds me of myself.” 

“It’s a noble way to live,” Lyra agrees. Watches him pry a wedge between a broken solar cell to get at the good bits of salvage. “Using the knowledge and wisdom of a lifetime to help his people.”

“If you ask me, Boss, it’s better than holding onto some faded piece of the past.” 

“Our pasts shape us. Life wouldn’t be what it is now without the past.”

“I’m not denying that, but letting your past determine your future isn’t a way to live either.” He replies, pausing long enough to stick his hand out to her, palm up. “Pass me the phillips.”

“What do you mean?” She asks, rifling through his tool box. “Our actions are our own, but every circumstance is determined by the past. We have to work with what we’re given to drive ourselves forward.” 

“Let me give you some old history of my own, kid. I left everything behind when I left Mexico: my home, my family, my name – even my face. Yeah, surprised I wasn’t always this handsome?” He says as he takes the second screwdriver from her hand. “But I went north and eventually settled in Tucson, and things weren’t perfect, but they weren’t as bad as Mexico city. I made my living fixing things because I was good at it. I fixed things for the town, for the people, and sometimes just for the hell of it. I figured it was a better use of my hands than killing.” He says, looking up from his work. And for a moment she thinks there isn’t an armor that his old irradiated eyes couldn’t cut through. 

But she doesn’t respond, takes the cue to listen instead. Her fingers find her necklace and worry over sun baked enamel. 

“Now I lived there a long time. Didn’t get into any fights, but kept my guns oiled for professional pride. Lived there for a good seventy-five years or so until _she_ showed up. Looked just like my Rafaela, and her name was Claudia.”

And there is his history. 

She grits her teeth at the mention of the Legion – how they brought “Arizona to heel”, but listens all the same. 

Listens as he tells her about Dave and the brothers that shot up a brothel. 

Listens as he recounts how he got there too late, a bullet in each of her eyes.

Listens as he tells her how he avenged her, and his own price of vengeance. How he lived because he was so full of rage. How he won by spite, outlived them only because he wanted them dead. 

Listens as he tells her why he put down the guns and how he ended up trapped in Black Mountain. 

“You’re still good with your guns.” She tells him after a while. And it’s true: she’s seen him put bullets in raiders, aim like Boone would while she fights up close with her blade. Not once has he shot her, for all his complaints about trembling in his old hands, they are steady when griped around a gun. 

“Yeah, I guess I’ve had my doubts, and traveling with you makes me realize that maybe I can carry my pistols proudly again. But that is the past and sometimes it’s best left there.” 

“You could be the vaquero again,” she replies, watching as he slots repaired cells into the missing slots on the frame. “You could do some more good in the world. There are plenty of people who can’t fight back like we can.” 

“I didn’t want to throw away my life in revenge. Perhaps you shouldn’t either, Boss. Nothing good ever came out of it for me.” 

“If not us, then who will? The NCR? They’re barely holding onto the Mojave as it is.” She says. 

“And you think your flag is better? You already took House out of the game, and he had old world blues worse than most who have lived pre-war, I’ll give you that. But your crusade against the Legion, nothing good will come of that. Maybe it’s best to let them come in and restore order where everyone else has failed.” 

She doesn’t bother holding back a snort of indignation. “If we do nothing, let everything play out, the Legion will cross the river and this land will become assimilated. These people, everyone on the Strip and Freeside, and all the little settlements - Novac, Primm, Goodsprings - they won’t last.”

“Legion isn’t all bad. Sure it’s run by a ruthless warlord with an army of fanatically-devoted warriors, but they bring security and order to the lands they rule.” He replies with his usual bite of sarcasm.

“You know Raul, I come from Arizona too. Except when the Legion brought the land to heel, they only left the desirable alive. Yeah there were raider tribes, but the Sun Dogs weren’t.” She says. There’s a lot more she could say, like how that town with the brothel probably ended up like Nipton, but there are other points to make. “When the Legion pulled me from my home and marked me in fire I lost everything: my home, my family, and my name. And in all my years in their territory, I never saw a ghoul until I escaped west.” 

She tells him, speaks her own history, and for once the venom isn’t in her voice.

* * *

By the end of the week – after days spent fixing the Boomer’s problems - the two set out for The Lady of the Lake. 

On the road Raul is quiet, and it unnerves her. She expects silence from Boone, not from Raul: the man who passes sarcasm out in spades. 

But they pass by a shack and Raul finally speaks. “Hold up a minute, Boss, I need to grab something.” It isn’t until he’s inside while she waits just outside the door that she realizes that this is his home, on the far fringe of New Vegas.

When he emerges several lengthy minutes later, she barely recognizes him. It’s not Miguel’s jumpsuit he’s wearing, and though she has nothing to compare it to she knows it must be the vaquero costume that made his sister laugh many years ago.

“Maybe I’m not as tough as I used to be, but my brains can make up for that, and my hands are still quick enough. I figured you were right, it’s time to put the guns back on.” He says, adjusting the wide brim hat on his head.


	11. Chapter 11

Cass holds her hand out and Lyra passes the bottle back. Some homebrew of Cass’s that tastes like turpentine; though that probably aged better than the swill they’re sharing. After 200 years it’s probably just as safe to drink too.

Cass brings the bottle, recycled from an old Sarsaparilla, to her lips and takes a swig. The liquid runs to the back of her throat and down in a smooth swallow. “Shouldn’t drink too much, we’ll probably go blind.” She says before jamming a cork in it with the flat of her palm. 

Lyra shrugs, already on the comfortable side of south of sober and expects that Cass is just about where she is despite drinking more. “Anymore and we’d probably be on our asses anyway.” 

She looks out over the rooftop of Bison Steve, the long shadows of the town and casino stretching out as the sun sets just beyond the canyon. 

Below she can hear shouting, the sheriff probably yelling at the former deputy again. She finds Meyers to be a bit of a hard ass, but thinks he’s better than NCR taxes bleeding the town dry. Dumb protectron probably would’ve been better if she knew a damn thing about machines.

Primm has been relatively quiet for some time now, but the NCR remains camped on the other side of the bridge. Pointless, she thinks, as their only excuse for staying was the Powder Gangers; which she helped clean out of the town months ago. Though the rumor of them holding out in some old vault holds her curiosity. She does not have to think very long on the matter to know that she doesn’t need another vault of Fiends and raiders developing under her nose. 

“What’s on your mind?” Cass asks, dangling feet swaying idly where she sits on the rooftop. 

“I’m thinking about I-15.” 

“Radioactive deathtrap of a highway.” Cass snorts.

“Needs to be cleared out.”

“You really are nuts,” Cass says around a light laugh. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you have a death wish.” 

“It’s more of a flirtatious relationship.” Lyra replies.

“Just give me an advanced warning if you’re going to go courting death. We don’t all have nine lives like you.” She says, pausing a moment before she asks, “Seriously though, what do you want to do with that nasty patch of road?” 

“It’ll open trade in the future. South-east road is the only open route out here and it’s becoming a bottle neck. Raiders and Legion have too many opportunities to ambush caravans coming from Good Springs and Primm.” Lyra replies, then as a second thought adds, “The outpost could use it too.” 

“Well I don’t mind trail blazing as long as we got ammo and whiskey.” Cass replies. She lifts the bottle to her lips and pauses when they touch cork. 

Further south of sober than Lyra estimated then. Even still, a smile pulls at the corners of her mouth. “Should probably get some dynomite too.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re drunk. Out of your mind if you think I’m letting you get your hands on that stuff again.”


End file.
